Zoltan Nagy-Bege, ANRE: “Demand greater than cheap supply is the cause of this energy crisis”

The crisis on the energy market is generated by the imbalance between demand and supply, because, now, the demand is greater than the cheap supply, according to Zoltan Nagy – Bege, the vice-president of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE).

“The crisis is generated by the imbalance between demand and supply. We need to balance demand and supply. Now, the demand for energy is greater than the supply or is greater than the cheap supply. Europe consumes a certain amount of expensive energy which also determines the final price for electricity. We have two options: either we supplement the supply side with cheap sources and immediately the price drops, or we go to the other side, of demand, which automatically involves energy efficiency measures, or at least to eliminate waste. We don’t necessarily need to make sophisticated investments in energy efficiency and go over our heads to invent new solutions,” Zoltan Nagy – Bege said during Smart Transformation Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“The first step would be to eliminate waste both at home, as simple citizens, and household consumers, and at the level of public institutions, but also at the company level. To answer the question of whether there will be more regulations, I say that there will be if necessary. I think that the market regulates a lot more natural than any other regulation. At this moment, given the crisis and the very high prices, the market naturally pushes us towards these measures.

For years, digital transformation can be observed throughout the energy chain, from production, transport, distribution, supply to the consumer, which helps to simplify processes and reduce costs.

All this also involves some medium-term, maybe long-term investments. Cities fall into the category of consumers. Cities are big consumers of electricity, thermal energy, gas, various fuels, and any measure taken at the local level by which we the direction to reduce waste or to reduce consumption through energy efficiency measures are welcome. We see that this is happening in many cities in Romania.”

Full recording of the conference: